Essential anime that isn't Studio Ghibli
If you've already seen Spirited Away three times, the form goes much deeper. Satoshi Kon, Mamoru Oshii, Hideaki Anno, Katsuhiro Otomo, Mamoru Hosoda, Makoto Shinkai — the catalogue is broader than Miyazaki.
Godzilla vs. Gigan Rex
foreign gem3am cult
Shinsei Galverse
foreign gemmindfuckneon soaked
Yu Yu Hakusho: Eizou Hakusho
foreign gemneon soakedplayful
Attack on Titan: THE LAST ATTACK
foreign gemdreadepic
Hunter × Hunter Pilot
foreign gemplayfultender
Spirited Away
foreign gembittersweetplayful
Leave it to Kero!
foreign gemplayfulcozy
Your Name.
foreign gembittersweetplayful
Teasing Master Takagi-san: The Movie
foreign gemcozyplayful
Grave of the Fireflies
foreign gembittersweetgut punch
JUJUTSU KAISEN: Hidden Inventory / Premature Death - The Movie
foreign gemplayfulraw
Haikyu!! the Movie: The End and the Beginning
foreign gemtenderuplifting
A Silent Voice: The Movie
foreign gembittersweetoutsider
Attack on Titan: The Roar of Awakening
foreign gemdreadepic
Chainsaw Man - The Movie: Reze Arc
foreign gembody horrorgut punch
Princess Mononoke
foreign gembittersweetepic
Pretty Cure All Stars F
foreign gemcozyplayful
Made in Abyss: Wandering Twilight
foreign gembittersweetbody horror
Perfect Blue
foreign gemmindfuckparanoid
Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Overture to a New War
foreign gemcerebralepic
Revue Starlight: The Movie
foreign gemneon soakedplayful
Cosmic Princess Kaguya!
foreign gemmindfuckneon soaked
Violet Evergarden: The Movie
foreign gembittersweettender
Mushi-Shi: The Next Chapter - Drops of Bells
foreign gembittersweetoutsider
Tomorrow's Joe The Movie
foreign gembittersweettender
Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid: A lonely dragon wants to be loved
foreign gembittersweetcozy
The Quintessential Quintuplets Movie
foreign gemtenderbittersweet
Dou kyu sei – Classmates
foreign gembittersweetslow burn
Josee, the Tiger and the Fish
foreign gembittersweettender
Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion
foreign gembody horrordread
Altre collezioni canone
Comfort-cult — the ones you rewatch forever
Deep-cut rewatchables — off the beaten path, on endless repeat
Japanese New Wave — the essentials
80s horror everyone has forgotten
Giallo — Italy's blood-red mystery genre
Korean cinema essentials beyond Parasite
Post-Soviet cinema — Russia & Eastern Europe after 1991
The Romanian New Wave
Slow cinema — the long-take canon
70s American paranoia — the post-Watergate canon
First features by directors who later mattered
Documentaries that hold up as cinema
Scandinavian noir beyond the Stieg Larsson franchises
Iranian new wave — Kiarostami, Farhadi, and the rest
Argentine cinema — beyond Wild Tales
British kitchen-sink and what it became
First features directed by cinematographers
German New Wave — Fassbinder, Herzog, Wenders, Schlöndorff
Hong Kong action — Woo, Lam, Tsui, To
Spaghetti westerns — Leone, Corbucci, Sollima, and the second tier
Mumblecore — the American indie movement nobody named
Czech New Wave — Forman, Chytilová, Menzel, before they fled
French New Wave — Godard, Truffaut, Varda, Rivette, Rohmer
Blaxploitation — Shaft, Pam Grier, and the 70s Black cinema boom
Dogme 95 — von Trier, Vinterberg, and the vow of chastity
Australian New Wave — Weir, Miller, Armstrong, Campion
African cinema — Sembène, Sissako, Mambéty, and beyond
Italian neorealism — the rubble and the real
Commedia all'italiana — Italy laughing at itself
German expressionism — shadows, angles, madness
Taiwanese New Cinema — Hou, Yang, Tsai, and the island's quiet revolution
New Queer Cinema — Haynes, Araki, Van Sant, and the 90s insurgency
Wuxia and martial arts — flying swords, hidden masters